The weekend’s news was dominated by the story of the prime minister’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, and his long trip to Durham during lockdown which he justified, at least partially, in the following way:

The rules make clear that when dealing with small children that can be exceptional circumstances and I think that was exceptional circumstances.

I suspect I’m in the majority in not considering this an acceptable interpretation of the rules. However, given that I don’t feel any particular prior animosity to Cummings, and given that I could easily imagine other exceptional circumstances that I would have thought made his actions acceptable, I find myself considering precisely what the problem is.

This also led me back to many debates about rules in schools where the topic of exceptions have come up. To hear some people talk about the evils of “no excuses” or “zero tolerance” behaviour policies you could be forgiven for thinking that there were schools that make no exception to the rules at all. It is more common than it should be to hear people, usually not working in schools, claim that a rule against letting kids out to the loo means kids soiling themselves, and a rule against letting kids out of the room every time they say they feel sick means that it is normal for kids to sit in class vomiting into a bucket. I don’t think these claims describe any schools at all. I think, if anything, there is far more of a constituency of people involved in education who always make exceptions and will justify almost any rule-breaking as something a child couldn’t help doing. I could probably rant for hours about the most ridiculous excuses for breaking rules I’ve heard from both kids, and, depressingly, from the kind of adult who believes children should be freed from adult authority.

So how do we distinguish between valid and invalid exceptions to rules?

Here are some considerations.

1) Does the exception make the rule pointless?

If making a particular exception to a rule renders the entire rule pointless then it’s not a valid exception. This might seem obvious, but schools often have rules that are rendered pointless by the exceptions. If your break duty is to keep kids out of a school building unless they have a reason to be inside, you may quickly discover that the only kids who don’t have a reason to be inside are those who didn’t realise they weren’t supposed to be in the building.

Giving endless chances before any sanction is given can mean that a rule of “don’t do X” quickly becomes “do X as much as you like, until a teacher tells you to stop”. Not confronting a child’s behaviour because they will respond badly to being confronted, can mean that rules are essentially guidelines to be followed by choice.

2) Is the exception actually exceptional?

Related to the last point, the sheer number of exceptions can make a rule pointless. A rule of “nobody leaves the lesson” becomes pointless if there are exceptions for medical reasons that are self-reported. In one school I worked in I taught a large class where a quarter of the students had a medical reason to leave the classroom to go to the toilets signed by a member of staff. After I reported this to the head of year and he made it marginally harder to get permission without recent parental contact or in serious cases a medical note, this immediately fell to no students at all.

A lot of the debate over strict rules and special needs is in this category. There are people who use a wide variety of SEN as a reason a child should not have to obey rules or as a reason particular rules should not exist. Many people argue as if being labelled SEN alone was a reason not to obey rules, even though in some cohorts 44% of children (51% of boys) have been labelled as SEN at some point in their time at school. A particular concern is those who begin their claims with “Children with autism can’t…”. These claims are virtually never true, given the nature of autism and how different kids with autism are. A special need should always be special and an exception should always be exceptional.

3) Is the exception obvious and uncontroversial?

One thing that always amazes me about debates on strict rules, is how willing some people are to believe that schools will not make obvious exceptions. Strangely enough, schools that have a rule that students stand up when a member of staff enters the room, don’t actually punish a student in a wheelchair for not following it. Those schools that encourage eye contact when greeting a member of staff cannot be assumed to be attempting to force out those whose SEN might make that difficult. And those who claim that rules against shouting abuse are discriminatory against those with Tourette’s, not only don’t understand schools, they don’t understand Tourette’s either. It’s debatable how clearly school rules have to say “this rule doesn’t apply in exceptional circumstances” as I can only think of one case in my two decades of teaching where an obvious exception wasn’t made (and that was a member of support staff, not a teacher who refused to make it) but we could probably move the debate on behaviour on a lot if everyone could admit that obvious exceptions are made all the time, and the controversial bit is over when we stop making exceptions.

4) Were “non-routine decisions” thought through?

A child has a medical note saying they should be let out to use the toilet. They use it every Thursday afternoon, usually as soon as they are given written work.

A child is being investigated for autism. Their paperwork says clearly that they will not be able to cope with being shouted at and will walk out. They walk out one lesson when told firmly they need to get on with the work.

A child uses a homophobic term that is not common these days to address a friend and they are overheard by a member of staff. When they are told that it is homophobic, they are shocked (strangely enough they usually have to hear this from their friends rather than just their teacher) and it is clear that they did not intend to be homophobic and have agreed that what they said was unacceptable.

All these cases are ones where, at the very least, there is room to consider for a moment, whether the normal course of action is the appropriate one and/or whether some follow up action will be needed later. I almost used the term “tough calls” for this section, but actually I’m not sure all the situations described above are “tough” for the experienced teacher, they are just not the sort of routine judgement teachers make without thinking and forget about a second later.

It should be the case that a teacher making a non-routine decision has thought it through and can explain it. This may even require delaying the final decision or making a provisional decision “e.g. I believe this is against the rules, I will look into it before issuing the detention”. It should be the case that schools make situations that require that extra thought as rare as possible by making sure rules are clear and widely understood. This is why it matters if people involved in writing the rules start interpreting them in ways that are unexpected.

5) Were “debatable decisions” considered by the appropriate people and clear guidance given?

If a teacher, even after some thought, is still not 100% sure they are right in their decision, what their decision should be, or even if they are confident but they think a parent might contact the school asking for the justification for a decision, it’s best to speak to somebody else. Firstly, it makes it clear that the teacher is aware of the issue; they didn’t make a mistake, and then try to cover it up. Secondly, this might bring to light more information or even a better understanding of the rules that resolves the problem. Thirdly, it means that if, eventually, it is decided the decision is the wrong one, then they are not personally hung out to dry, it becomes the responsibility of the school to get it right. The other side of this is, if a teacher’s decision is decided to be wrong, they should be informed immediately and the reasons why explained clearly. I have left schools because it was normal for teacher’s decisions about sanctions to be overruled without the teacher being informed or where managers would deny responsibility for the things they made teachers do.

I hope these are useful considerations about rules and exceptions in schools. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether any of these points also apply to the case of Dominic Cummings.

Particularly common is the suggestion that a head with a low level of exclusions has something to teach us (in this case we have every reason to disagree) and the idea that it is reasonable to comment on the level of exclusions without commenting on the level of unacceptable behaviour in schools. There are some things we can say about the level of exclusions without looking at behaviour. We have heard a lot about rising exclusions recently and you can easily find people complaining that something they personally dislike, like an academic curriculum or schools actually enforcing rules, is causing exclusions to increase. The latest figures show a general rise in permanent exclusions since 2012 when Michael Gove abolished the right to appeal, but this is a rise from a level which was already a historic low, and is still lower than 2006/7.

And if we look even further back, we see just how low permanent exclusions were before the rise.

The latest exclusion figures show that the number of permanent exclusions in the 21000 state schools 2017/18 was 7905. This is less than 1 in every 1000 pupils, i.e. 0.10%. The rate of permanent exclusions in primary schools was 0.03 per cent. The rate of permanent exclusions in secondary schools was 0.20 per cent. As well as having a much lower rate of exclusions, primary schools are smaller, so an individual primary school will exclude far less often than a secondary school. On average, a secondary school excludes 2 students a year, whereas, on average, a primary school will exclude a student once in a period of almost 14 years. Strangely this is overlooked by the anti-exclusion lobby, and we see some primary heads praised for avoiding exclusions as if it was an achievement, rather than normal for primaries.

We are at #losethebooths today to listen & join the debate about how to create whole school systems that promote learning AND wellbeing.

The primary/secondary difference also largely explains statistics like this from the Guardian.

Overall, 85% of all mainstream schools did not expel a single child in 2016-7, while 47 individual secondary schools (0.2% of all schools) expelled more than 10 pupils in the same year.

We would expect the vast majority of schools to be primary schools expelling nobody in a given year, and permanent exclusions to be concentrated in secondary schools.

We also often hear claims that permanent exclusions are given for less serious misbehaviour. Often this is a result of confusing permanent and fixed term exclusions, but where it isn’t, it’s based on implausible and unverified anecdotes or on an interpretation of the way permanent exclusions are categorised.

Those who wish to reduce or prevent exclusions, point to the fact that the largest category “Persistent disruptive behaviour” is very vague, and, perhaps by focusing on the word “disruptive” rather than the word “persistent”, interpret it to cover less serious, or easily preventable, offences.

Examples of this:

Yup, the bar for exclusion is now very low indeed for precisely this reason. "Persistent disruptive behaviour" can cover a lot of stuff that fairly ordinary kids can get up to if they are stressed/struggling/SEND

Unfortunately so. I think policies like this are used to generate copious amounts of 'evidence' to justify exclusion. PRUs then receive students because of 'persistent disruptive behaviour' (real classification) when actually they kissed their teeth or rolled their eyes a lot🤷🏾‍♂️

Usual reactionary BS the majority of exclusions in this country are for 'persistent disruptive behaviour' NOT for serious criminal behaviour & young people with SEND or children in care are between 4 & 5 times more likely to be px than others that is the real issue #givemeabreak

What we are calling for is a reduction of avoidable exclusions – i.e those that come under persistent disruptive behaviour & other – and are by no means suggesting that teachers should become ‘punching-bags’

Like so much of the debate about exclusions, I find a real disconnect between my experience as a teacher which is that exclusions are infrequent and always for something that schools cannot tolerate without endangering children’s safety and learning, and claims like the above. In my experience, “persistent disruptive behaviour” is not less serious than the other reasons for exclusions, it is just more persistent. Children I’ve encountered who have been excluded for this are usually out of control, and often will have repeatedly committed the offences described in the supposedly more serious categories.

While there is some evidence, to be discussed in a later blogpost, that teachers do not think schools are too quick to exclude, we would struggle to find direct evidence of whether permanent exclusions are used sparingly and only for the most serious behaviour. However, what we can do is look at the scale of the worst behaviour in schools, and ask whether it can sufficiently account for the number of permanent exclusions that take place. Of course, it could be argued that schools are permanently excluding for trivial offences while tolerating extreme offences, but such a claim would, at the very least, be implausible enough to require very strong evidence. If the number of exclusions is low compared with the amount of extreme behaviour taking place, it is unlikely that schools are too quick to exclude, and if the behaviours in the “more serious” categories for exclusions are far more common than the exclusion figures would suggest, it is unlikely that the “less serious” categories such as “other” or “persistent disruptive behaviour” (which between the account for the majority of permanent exclusions) are being used for trivial offences.

These are the numbers of permanent exclusions, by type, from 2017/2018.

Number

Permanent exclusions

Physical assault against a pupil

1,037

Physical assault against an adult

845

Verbal abuse/ threatening behaviour against a pupil

338

Verbal abuse/ threatening behaviour against an adult

652

Bullying

32

Racist abuse

13

Sexual misconduct

100

Drug and alcohol related

643

Damage

77

Theft

40

Persistent disruptive behaviour

2,686

Other

1,442

Total

7,905

Judging the level of bad behaviour in schools is hard to do accurately. Almost any source will be either an estimate or a partial picture. Fortunately, we don’t need to be very precise to see how low the above figures are. Teacher Tapp surveys teachers by using a large sample weighted to be representative. They asked teachers about their experience of physical and verbal abuse in the last year.

There are 453400 (Full Time Equivalent) teachers in state schools. This means the best estimate we have of teachers experiencing physical abuse from pupils in a year is 95000. The best estimate of teachers experiencing verbal abuse from pupils would be 249000. Both terms are defined by the respondents, and obviously any sample will not be perfect, but this is enough to give some idea of the gap between the permanent exclusion figures and the likely number of incidents serious enough for teachers to consider them to be verbal or physical abuse. Permanent exclusions for physical assault against an adult, and verbal abuse/threatening behaviour against an adult are 845 and 652 respectively for the last year on record, out of 7905 permanent exclusions in total. The mismatch between these figures and those derived from a representative sample of teachers, make a mockery of the idea that schools are quick to permanently exclude, and the idea that we can assume without evidence, or on the basis of vague categories, that permanent exclusions include lots of trivial offences.

Another source of evidence is that in recent years journalists have reported on Freedom of Information requests to police forces about crimes reported at schools. These figures are likely to be incomplete as not all police forces respond, and some will include crimes by adults in schools, and figures from Scotland and Wales. We can also assume that many incidents (I’d say from experience the vast majority of incidents) in schools that, technically, can be considered criminal are not reported to the police. However, if all we are looking for is whether permanent exclusions reflect the frequency of serious incidents in schools, it is worth noting how they compare with what incidents in schools are reported to the police.

Comparing these with the exclusion figures, we again get the clear impression that both the total number of exclusions, and the exclusions for the “most serious” offences (if one wishes to claim that the “persistent disruptive behaviour” and “other” categories are made up of less serious offences) are far lower than expected. We have a situation where the threshold for permanently excluding for a single offence appears higher than the threshold for reporting the single offence to the police as a crime.

The view that permanent exclusions are currently high, seems completely dependent on ignoring the realities of behaviour in schools. When you consider what teachers say they experience, and what is reported to the police, we should be asking why the rate of permanent exclusions is so low, and what can be done to make schools safer.

Like this:

It doesn’t take long in a discussion about behaviour for somebody who should know better to claim that the key to good behaviour is good relationships. It’s true that a bad relationship could undermine you with a class. It’s true that sometimes a good relationship with some of the dominant personalities will have a really positive effect on a class. It’s true that it’s better to have good relationships than bad with your students. However, we should not confuse cause and effect. It’s much easier to have a good relationship with a well behaved class. It’s easy to con yourself that the good behaviour you get from a class is because the class like you, but it’s far more likely that the class like you when your lessons are safe and orderly and you are not having to constantly tell them off. In my experience, if you visit schools with strict and effective behaviour management, you also see really good relationships between staff and students. This is because relationships thrive where staff and students are happy and flourishing, and that happens best where there are boundaries and students are safe. The opposite of this is the school where good behaviour occurs mainly when students have been “won over”; where strangers and new staff may be treated with contempt and life is hell for the teacher who isn’t liked.

Most of the teachers with the strongest relationships with students have earned them the right way: through firm discipline and commitment to their students’ well-being. In an environment where winning over students is a prerequisite for an absence of abuse and defiance, there will be some adults who have prioritised these relationships above establishing the right expectations. In tough schools I have encountered teachers who have “good relationships” who earned them by never confronting a student. I have sat observing in lessons where the teacher had the most friendly and respectful conversations with even the most difficult students, but never said a word as the students subjected each other to abuse and harassment. Appeasement is a key strategy to surviving in a school where behaviour is based on relationships; rather than relationships allowed to develop due to good behaviour. Because relationships are a two way street, and students can choose who they like, schools where good behaviour is conditional on relationships, shift power to those students who want it. Those students can make it clear to teachers: “If you want an easy life, don’t get in my way”. At best this just means a lowering of academic standards, but often it means the departure of adult authority from the classroom. While this may be empowering for the ringleaders, it leaves most children unprotected from the mob, as staff fear the bullies among the children as much as their peers do.

Another aspect of schools where only good relationships will prompt good behaviour, is the effect on new staff. Typically, it takes a long time to establish yourself. These schools are not a nice place to start teaching, and even experienced teachers will find themselves treated badly when they move schools. Students will have a perception of who they need to obey and who they don’t. Supply teachers will be driven out; new staff will frequently go under, and classes will boast of the teachers they reduced to tears. Worse still, students will learn to coordinate their disruption. New staff are the obvious target, but sometimes a particular part of the curriculum will become known as the one to disrupt. Sometimes staff will be targeted for their gender, sexuality or ethnicity. There are schools where good behaviour depends on good relationships, but you almost certainly won’t have that good relationship if you teach French; if you speak with an accent, or you happen to follow the wrong religion.

Finally, let’s accept that teachers are all different. Some are more introverted than others. Some like football and crude jokes; others like opera and subtle wit. Not everybody likes small talk. The culture of having to win over students turns teachers into superficial people, more interested in playing to the crowd than imparting something profound. Halfway between a politician and a game show host, the teacher with the most winning personality may “succeed” despite poor subject knowledge and little skill at imparting knowledge. They may even have the tricks of the demagogue: knowing how to manipulate individuals and how to lead a mob. Any teacher who is introverted; any teacher who is on the autistic spectrum; any teacher who cares more about their subject than being liked, is not welcome in the school where good behaviour depends on relationships. And it’s worse still for the misfits among the students. Expectations vary rapidly between classrooms as boundaries shift according to relationships. There’s no chance to learn good habits and follow routines; every lesson will be about navigating the social relationships between the teacher and the class. Instead of learning the useful skill of cooperating with people you don’t like; instead students are encouraged only to learn where the class has tacitly decided the teacher is “fun” enough for them. You wouldn’t want to be an autistic child in a school where the only rule is, “Don’t get on the wrong side of the mob”. Ironically, SEND students are frequently used as an excuse to justify the fuzzy boundaries and relationships first approach to discipline. You don’t have to be a teacher for five minutes to see how often these are the kids who are failed most in these schools.

Behaviour is not about relationships. Good relationships with your students are worth having whether it will help behaviour or not. Good relationships are, however, no substitute for an orderly and secure environment where every teacher, and every student, can flourish.

Like this:

After this post and the debate that followed it, I was contacted by a teacher based in Scotland who wanted to share their experience of what’s happening.

Andrew Old recently posted a blog about Scotland and the much-hyped achievement of eliminating exclusions. For some, Scotland has been heralded as a bastion of social progress, inclusion and tackling poor behaviour; “look at Scotland!”, they cry, “we too can abolish exclusions!”. Bliss, apparently awaits, if only schools lost the power to exclude pupils.

The truth however, does not match the claims. It is correct that exclusions have dropped significantly, but this has not been achieved through tackling poor behaviour. Indeed, quite the reverse. Rather than listening to education consultants with books to flog, or spaces at courses to fill, it may be useful to actually ask teachers prepared to be critical – often those not seeking promotion – about what is going on in Scotland. Or even the pupils and parents of these children blighted by the bad behaviour that goes unchecked in Scottish schools.

For instance, last November, a senior pupil at my school threw a bottle filled with urine at a group of younger pupils. His sanction? Sent home for the rest of the day.

Another pupil, seemingly mature and well-behaved, put forward for a scholarship programme, sent an email to the organisation telling them to “Fuck off :)” when his application was rejected. His sanction? Nothing.

All high schools in Scotland have internal Behaviour Support departments. Pupils may be completely off timetable and complete all their learning in the facility. However, in many schools, this is a place pupils ‘run to’, if challenged in class. Indeed, many pupils are given a Timeout Pass’, giving them permission to leave your class at their own discretion to go to Behaviour Support. Needless to say, this is where they can curse, swear and be wrapped in cooing sounds, telling them it is okay.

We also ‘soft’ exclude. We will often send pupils home until we can arrange a meeting with a parent. Unfortunately, we can only arrange a meeting for the following week, or the week after. It doesn’t go on the books, but gets the school respite from the pupil.

Andrew missed one major area in his article which should be considered when discussing behaviour: attainment.

The Scottish exam structure changed in 2012 from Standard Grades, which were broken down into Credit (grades 1-2), the top level where pupils were likely to go up to Higher; General (grades 3-4), and Foundation (grades 5-6). Each level had an exam externally marked. Pupils were typically entered as ‘General-Credit’, or ‘Foundation-General’, giving each pupil a fall-back position. It was inclusive of all levels and pupils had to work up to the exam, meaning they must actually focus in class (to a greater or lesser degree).

Now things are very much different. We have qualifications called “Nationals” (a nebulous term, brought in during a certain political party being in power… But I digress…)

National 4 is the supposed replacement for General Level. There is NO exam. All internally marked units, where pupils can repeat assessments till they get the correct answer. As that National 4 is unit work, the threshold for “just passed” is shockingly low. Supposedly externally verified by the Scottish exam board, the SQA, these units are barely checked. How do I know? I am the Principal Verifier for one of the subjects and we checked two schools last year; each of these schools only had three pupils being presented. We don’t have the budget for verification duties.

Why does this impact behaviour and exclusions in any way? Well, the jump from National 4, with no exam and low threshold for passing units, to National 5 (the credit replacement), is huge. Many pupils don’t make it. The path of progression is broken and this demotivates many pupils that are “at-risk”; they begin to act-out in class and see the experience as a waste of time. However, schools in Scotland are held accountable for children till they are 18, even if they leave at 16. Progression Pathways are closely monitored.

So what do we do? We have started introducing all sorts of crazy qualifications “just to give pupils something to do”. Want to drop English in S5? Sure, here is National 4 Cake Craft! Don’t like maths anymore? Don’t push to National 5 then, do National 4 Sports Leader. We basically entertain the pupils to keep them in school. The qualifications no longer have the merit they once did. No employer or college takes these seriously anymore. The teachers know it; the parents know it and the pupils know it.

We are doing our pupils a huge disservice in Scotland and it makes me very, very upset.

Don’t look north for inspiration. We are currently ill, but I hope we recover in the future.

2016-2017: 5 (after correction, apparently they missed 4 of these on first publication).

2018-2019: 3

The figures are collected every 2 years, so I don’t know if in the years that aren’t counted they go up. But it is clear these have been slashed.

Now, if Scotland want to either tolerate bad behaviour, or exclude in a way that doesn’t show up in official figures, that’s up to them. Unfortunately, those who oppose permanent exclusions are using the changed statistics to claim that Scotland has changed not only the practise of exclusion, but the need to exclude. In a report about the director of education in Glasgow, the TES reports that:

Ms McKenna, … says this change has not come about because of some “fancy-nancy initiative”, but because decisions in schools – and in secondaries in particular – are now made in a more “child-centred way”.

In Glasgow, she says, teachers are encouraged to see all behaviour as communication and to take into account the context children are living in when deciding how to deal with pupil transgressions.

….

“We don’t have any fancy-nancy initiative where I can say, ‘There’s £1 million here that I spent on that and wow, look, it reduced exclusions.’ What we have done is we made the decision to work in a more child-centred way.

“The whole agenda in Scotland around adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma-informed practice has had a big impact. Teachers are much more knowledgeable now about the context of children’s lives and behaviour is no longer looked at in isolation.

“One of the biggest achievements in Glasgow is that teachers don’t see it as bad behaviour but as distressed behaviour. That all behaviour is communication is one of our big training focuses. Now they are seeing behaviour in a different light.”

This claim has been leapt upon by campaigners against discipline in English schools:

Scotland are getting it right. They start conversations with trauma informed practice not with control

I think we need to look to Scotland who had reduced exclusions to virtually zero and Italy where exclusions are illegal. Let’s see what they do and have done and learn from them. But the starting for me now is no more exclusions – not one.

And continues, to great effect, in Scotland. My point is not whether exclusions 'work' or not. It's this: when so many other countries teach effectively with little or no exclusions, why do we feel the need to do it?

Now, Scotland may be doing some good things. There are reports that individual schools have their own PRUs, allowing students to be permanently removed which may have benefits (although if the only benefit is that it doesn’t appear in the figures that’s still a concern).

However, what do we make of claims that in Scotland the need to exclude, rather than the need to record it in the figures, has been changed, particularly through “trauma informed” methods? Unfortunately, nobody reports accurately on the amount of behaviour in a school system. We can’t make comparisons with England. We can’t expect Scottish teachers to be able to talk about behaviour openly. We can’t say how out of control Scottish schools are. Normally, we’d be stuck at this point when talking about changes in exclusion policy.

However, the Scottish exclusion levels are so low, that if they have reduced behaviour that requires permanent exclusion to the levels claimed, they would have achieved a “behaviour miracle”. If the figures are true it would be extremely hard to find anything worth permanently excluding for in Scottish school, and this we can check. We can easily find every reason to believe that bad behaviour still exists on a scale far greater than the figures show in the years 2014-2019. The following stories are all from the period where Scottish schools were permanently excluding less than half a dozen kids. I leave you to judge whether bad behaviour that merits a permanent exclusion has been cured by a Scottish approach that we should copy.

From BBC Scotland reporting on compensation pay outs to teachers in 2019:

Three teachers who were assaulted by pupils were awarded more than £100,000 compensation between them, according to Scotland’s largest teachers union.

The EIS says one of the victims received £55,000 after suffering serious injuries.

The figures were contained in the union’s annual roundup of compensation secured for its members….

…A total of £105,000 of compensation was split between three teachers who were assaulted by pupils in separate incidents:

A payout of £55,000 involved a case were a pupil had shouted obscenities towards a teacher then violently assaulted them. The teacher suffered serious injuries as a result

A teacher who was injured in an altercation with a pupil and suffered distress received £30,000 in compensation

And a teacher diagnosed with concussion who was signed off work received £20,000. A pupil had assaulted the teacher, pulled their hair and headbutted them repeatedly

Teachers at a school in Edinburgh have been sent home without pay after refusing to teach pupils they claim are violent and abusive.

A union has accused the city council of “bullying and intimidating” staff at [school name], a school for children with additional support needs.

Eleven teachers have refused to give lessons to eight pupils following physical and verbal assaults.

The council said it was wrong for staff to pick and choose who to teach.

The teachers are members of the NASUWT union, which earlier this year balloted for industrial action short of a strike by refusing to teach or supervise eight pupils who they believe pose a risk to health, safety and welfare.

Violent attacks are understood to have included chairs and signs thrown at teachers, causing injuries with police called in on some occasions.

A GROUP of school children have told how they experience harrowing racist abuse in Scotland’s schools as a new report calls for urgent action to tackle the problem.

Secondary school pupils told the Herald on Sunday they were called the “N” word, told to hang themselves from headscarves and ordered to “get back to the jungle” by fellow students.

One young black woman said her siblings wished they had white skin, saying “our skin colour only brings us trouble.”

They spoke out ahead of the publication of a new report, due to be launched at the Scottish Parliament next week, which highlights the views of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) children in Scotland.

Commissioned by Intercultural Youth Scotland, researchers asked more than 100 secondary school children from across the country their views on racism, the school curriculum and whether they felt included among their white peers.

The Herald on Sunday has obtained exclusive access to the study conducted by EDI Scotland, which show more than half of pupils didn’t think their teachers knew how to handle racist incidents, didn’t feel comfortable reporting racism to their teachers, and didn’t recognise themselves in the types of issues they were learning about in the classroom.

The majority of pupils also said they didn’t think their school would “respond effectively to any concerns raised about racism or discrimination”.

No doubt I will be condemned for compiling this information. There is nothing the anti-discipline lobby hate more than the public knowing about what happens in schools. However, as a teacher in England, I can only say that the reason our exclusion rate is much higher than in Scotland is because we are willing to use permanent exclusions to try to prevent this sort of behaviour. I can’t claim we succeed and nobody can compare the two countries, but I see no reason to look to Scotland for inspiration.

One final point, knife crime has fallen in Scotland and a number of campaigners have claimed this is a result of reducing exclusions. I can’t prove it isn’t, but before anyone accepts this as fact I will point out that the sentences given for carrying a knife in Scotland increased substantially immediately prior to the reduction. We have to ask ourselves, particularly in light of the murder of a Scottish schoolboy in 2016, whether we think that the figures are down because of kids with knives being in school, or because of what was done about those convicted of knife crime.

Like this:

I won’t name names, as people shouldn’t be pointed out for being misled, but a few days ago somebody I follow on Twitter who isn’t a teacher tweeted the following:

I had never heard of or seen an ‘isolation booth’ until they cropped up this year on Twitter. What the hell is going on in our schools that this is some kind of normal practice?

Like most people, I also hadn’t heard of isolation booths before the “Ban the Booths” campaign began in late 2018. I had repeatedly worked in schools that used “internal exclusion”, i.e. where students may be removed from their scheduled lessons to work in silence under adult supervisions. Some even referred to this as “isolation”. I think some even have had dividers between desks, like in this picture here, although perhaps not ones that go all the way to the ceiling or stick out so far. But none had ever referred to “isolation booths”.

I looked at the debate that happened at the time, and saw that it was a familiar selection of people who tend to be against punishing the badly behaved, calling for:

The regulation and reporting of all children isolated for more than half a day.

This policy was explicit in the letter template they encouraged people to send to MPs and in much of what I read. However, the rhetoric and propaganda did refer repeatedly to “booths” and there were claims, such as “In a recent FOI by the BBC of 600 schools a third had isolation booths” which indicated that no clear distinction was being made between internal exclusion rooms in general and “booths”.

There are obvious problems here. The practice that the campaigners are pushing to obstruct is internal exclusion which is common. The practice they claim to object to is “isolation booths” which is not something most of us have ever heard of before they started to campaign against it and is not clearly defined in most discussions. These should be two entirely separate issues but by mixing them up, people who have a long history of campaigning against discipline can push their agenda without making it explicit.

So what is an “isolation booth”? As far as I can tell it refers to a wide variety of structures designed to insulate against noise. So, for instance, Advanced Acoustics, advertises temporary soundproof booths, known as “isolation booths” among other soundproofing products and mentions studios, cinemas and listening rooms as potential uses, but also offers “office acoustic treatments” and mentions classrooms and sports halls in this context. Office furniture companies also offer isolation booths, for instance, for call centres:

This particular company offers products for schools. One type of booth (with lower dividers between desks) is sold as a “school isolation booth” although it would appear an identical product is sold as an “office isolation booth”. There is no suggestion that isolation booths for schools are for internal exclusion rooms (even though in some schools these rooms are called “isolation”) as opposed to say, school libraries or sixth form study areas. An isolation booth is just furniture, not in itself a punishment.

What we appear to have is people who object to punishing kids trying to demonise the use of internal exclusion, by calling it “booths” implying that internal exclusion facilities are extremely confined and austere and certain media outlets going along with this for the sake of a story. The graphics used in reporting about “booths” can be remarkably dishonest. For instance, the first image above appears in this cropped form on the Independent website:

Even the image used above to advertise call centre booths is used by the BBC to illustrate a story about internal exclusion.

Does it matter if people who are proposing to regulate internal exclusion keep talking about “booths”? It does if people in policy-making positions join in. We have seen MPs and the Children’s Commissioner back campaigns against “booths”. We need an end to talk of “booths”. Either school leaders have the right to internally exclude or they don’t. If you aren’t backing that right, any attempt to make the issue about the furniture, is just misleading.